The invention relates to a portable apparatus for and a method of milking cows and other dairy animals that range free in a pasture.
Dairy animals generally are milked at least twice a day. The manual work involved in milking is difficult and problematic from an ergonomic point of view. To reduce the risk of spinal issues that commonly arise from having to bend down to attach and remove the milking apparatuses, some dairy operations raise the animal to be milked relative to the dairy hands. However, such has been accomplished by means of ramps, as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,828,733, issued Aug. 13, 1974 to Correia for a Portable Milking Stall. However, hoofed animals are reluctant to ascend inclines and may suffer debilitating or fatal injuries while descending. Some inventions have resolved this with cars drawn up an inclined surface, as in U.S. Pat. No. 7,055,458, issued Jun. 6, 2006 to Guo for System for the Presentation of Animals to Be Milked and Method. However, such systems are not realistically feasible or economical.
What is needed is a portable milking apparatus and method that promote ergonomically-facile milking without having the animal ascend or descend a ramp or steps.
Research has shown that it is possible to increase the milk production from cows by 15-25% by milking three or even four times per day and this without detriment to the cows. Such benefits also may be found in other dairy animals, such as goats. However, the logistics and increased labor costs from herding the animals to a centralized milking facility limits profitable realization of this additional production.
Also, repeatedly congregating animals in one area for extended periods for milking causes a number of problems, including waste buildup. Dairy operations with permanent centralized milking facilities must clean the facilities and surroundings regularly to prevent the animals and dairy hands from becoming ill from waste-borne pathogens. Cleaning typically involves significant amounts of water drawn from an aquifer. The water combines with the waste and flows into manmade and natural waterways.
Another issue with centralized milking is that cows' repeated trampling kills grass and other vegetation en route to and around the milking facility. The reduced grazing space naturally discourages feeding cows from the denuded paths and promotes increased usage of spaces that gradually shrink as grazing thereon intensifies. As a consequence, the grazeable spaces experience increasingly higher nutrient loading, but as nutrient uptake by the grass is limited, more nutrients are brought into the local watershed basin.
While the trampled, hard-packed surrounding earth may be problematic, even more so are the concrete floors on which animals walk in centralized milking facilities. The hard concrete often causes hoof injuries over the long periods of time that the animals mill about the facilities. The concrete also can be slippery as it worn down and buffed with the detritus typical to the facilities, which causes the animals to fall and injure themselves, sometimes fatally.
In addition to the overgrazing that occurs, dairies with centralized milking facilities often harvest grass from other portions of the farm to provide to the cows while milking. Supplementary feed also may be purchased and brought to the facility. Both food supplying activities expend time and money, and typically involve burning carbon-based fuels by harvesting and transportation equipment that produces green house gases.
Another issue with denuded pastures is that animals thereon tend to accumulate fine-particulate mud and dust on their legs and udders. This undesirable residue, despite the best milking practices, increases the risk of mastitis, which is not healthy for the animal, and tends to wind up in the milk to some extent, which is not healthy for the public.
To counter these undesirable consequences, some dairies employ washing systems to wash off the animals before milking. The systems and operation thereof are expensive, time-consuming and expend a great deal of water that also must be recollected and disposed of.
In addition to environmental issues, centralized milking has significant economic considerations. First, permanent facilities are expensive to design and build. The expense can limit the natural expansion of a heard to what existing facilities can handle. Also, many dairy farmers lease the lands on which they raise their animals, so are reluctant to build what would be left behind after the lease ends.
What is needed is a portable milking apparatus and method that discourage the concentration of waste, thereby reducing the need for precious water resources and other consequences that remove nutrients.